Free The Heir by Johanna Lindsey

do that, m’dear, when the Reids have already left to return to London.”
    “Left?” Sabrina frowned. “Just because the marquis declined to entertain grandly? Ophelia really wouldn’t get into a snit about that, would she?”
    “I’ve no idea. Didn’t see them before they left. Hilary might have. You can ask her.”
    Sabrina did that, while they waited in the entryway with their baggage. The housekeeper had sent for one of Lord Neville’s own vehicles, since they had no other transportation, having arrived with the Reids.
    “Mary said she would write me,” Hilary replied in answer to Sabrina’s question. “She said she was too upset to talk of it just now, and poor dear, she did look quite upset.”
    “And Ophelia? Did you see her?”
    “Yes,” Hilary said, then in a whispered aside, ‘And she appeared to have finally been chastised by her father, for being so presumptuous. Quite pink, her one cheek was. I don’t hold with physical discipline, but Mary’s girl
has
been allowed to take on airs that
should
have been nipped in the bud long ago.”
    Sabrina was amazed. “Her father actually slapped her?”
    Hilary nodded. “That handprint on her cheek would suggest so.”
    “But they didn’t object when she invited us here,” Sabrina pointed out.
    “We hardly would have been noticed if it had only been us, but fifty-six people arrived here today, all invited by Ophelia, as if she were already the marquise and had every right to invite whomever she pleased. It’s no wonder Neville put his foot down after he finally got a full head count. I would have, too, I don’t mind saying, if the guests I
do
invite happen to invite fifty-six others. M’dear, that just isn’t proper form.”
    Of course it wasn’t, and Ophelia did no doubt know that. But then Sabrina had never spoken to her aunts about Ophelia’s attempt to sabotage her engagement to be rid of what
had
been an unwanted fiancé. She just hadn’t felt comfortable talking about it, when she so disapproved of it, and Ophelia’s mother was Hilary’s good friend.
    This latest scheme of Ophelia’s to have half the
ton
descending on Summers Glade had likely been done
just
to infuriate the marquis. But then that was before she had actually met her fiancé,and if she
had
met him by now, she was undoubtedly regretting what she had set in motion.
    It was all very complicated, Ophelia’s plans and means of accomplishing them. Sabrina was quite glad to be out of it. She had been raised to be straightforward. Setting up complicated schemes in the hopes that they would have a particular desired effect just wasn’t her cup of tea. It had never been dull, being around Ophelia, but Sabrina was actually looking forward to a bit of dullness again.
    However, she
was
hoping for one more sight of Duncan MacTavish before she left Summers Glade, since she wasn’t likely to see him again after today, at least not until the wedding, which they were sure to be invited to. With Ophelia gone back to London, he would probably be going there as well. But wherever he was in the big house, it wasn’t near the entrance, and they were soon on their way home.

Fourteen
    “
W ell, where is she? I mun admit I’ve been looking forward tae meeting this most bonny lassie in all o’ England that ye found for the lad.”
    Neville bristled as the large Scotsman barged into his dining room where he’d been partaking of a solitary dinner. Neville’s butler, arriving a second later, gave him a pained look, that he hadn’t arrived first to give him warning of this intrusion.
    “Archibald?” Neville guessed.
    “Aye, and who else were ye expecting?”
    “Certainly not you,” Neville said disagreeably. “What the devil are you doing here?”
    The Scot pulled up a chair across from Neville and stared at the butler, as if expecting him to serve him, now that he was there. But to Neville he said, “Ye didna think I’d be leaving it tae ye taemake sure the wedding goes forward in